Naval Expansion Makes China a Growing Power

Mar 17, 2009
By Richard D. Fisher, Jr.


In late 2008 and during the first weeks of 2009, Chinese and Russian sources provided new insights into China’s ambitions to build aircraft carriers and air wings to equip them. This data was then assessed in light of China’s momentous December 2008 decision to dispatch a small People’s Liberation Army Navy flotilla to prosecute Somali pirates (see related story on p. 21), resulting in wide commentary about the country’s ambitions to build a much larger conventional navy. Absent from much of this analysis, however, is an adequate understanding of China’s progress in assembling a phalanx of space, air and naval forces designed to pose an effective asymmetrical threat to large conventional navies.

A three-level Chinese military challenge is unfolding for Washington and its allies. A long-standing debate over whether China intends to build a large conventional navy to defend its increasingly global interests is being settled in the affirmative, justifying a continued investment by the U.S. and its allies in large naval forces. At the same time China’s success in fielding effective asymmetrical capabilities makes necessary the development of defensive systems, it also undermines the continued justification for large conventional platforms like aircraft carriers, which could be sunk if found. A third challenge emerges when China successfully deploys its asymmetrical systems, either on unique platforms or by sale of elements to allies.

Much of the justification for this large technology and capability investment has been provided by China’s requirement to quickly assemble the means to prevent the U.S. from aiding Taiwan if China forces “unification” without building a correspondingly large conventional military. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) planners in the early 1990s assessed that if U.S. military access to the western Pacific was denied or impeded, China’s military threats to Taiwan would become more credible and have the desired political effects. This period begins to see early PLA efforts to invest in modern military capabilities: new C4ISR systems; space and airborne weapons; and a naval expansion that focuses on regional-denial capabilities.

This is China’s near-term goal, but it also provides building blocks for future power projection. Perhaps the most important enabler for the PLA’s transition from a regional to a global force will be advances in C4ISR. A key aspiration of PLA doctrine since the late 1990s has been to apply ever more sophisticated information technologies to military endeavors. With its roots in the now famous 1986 “863 Program” to fund high-technology military research, C4ISR progress has benefited from the PLA building one of the world’s most advanced national fiber-optic grids in the 1990s, plus creation of one of the world’s leading computer chip and hardware sectors. These have enabled the PLA’s steady progress in creating C4ISR capabilities in space, on the ground and in cyberwarfare.

China has made dramatic progress in building space information architecture with communication, navigation and surveillance satellites. So far the PLA controls only two dedicated communication satellites, one of which supports Ka-band tactical communication links. But the PLA is thought to have access to a larger number of communication satellites controlled by China’s satellite companies.

An initial constellation of four BeiDou navigation satellites (navsat) was placed in orbit in April 2007. Only capable of China-region coverage with the help of ground-station broadcasts, they have a secondary text-communication function. China’s larger goal is to loft a 30-satellite Compass navsat constellation by 2015. This will provide global coverage and complement and compete with the U.S. GPS, Russian Glonass and European Galileo navsat systems.

China launched the first two HuangJing high-resolution electro-optical surveillance satellites on Sept. 5, 2008. These will eventually comprise a constellation of at least four electro-optical and four Russian-aided radar satellites, the first to be launched this year. This follows the YaoGan surveillance satellite constellation, which consists so far of two planar radar satellites and two electro-optical satellites. China intends to fly some of these satellites in formation, which could yield data to support 360-deg. mapping and 3D mission-planning programs. An electro-optical, surveillance-satellite program with Brazil was recently extended by three satellites (making five total), and China has long been a major consumer of commercial satellite imagery. Chinese sources also indicate that the PLA is developing dedicated missile-early-warning satellites.

An important achievement was the Apr. 25, 2008, launch of the PLA’s first TianLan data-relay satellite, which supported last September’s Shenzhou-7 manned space mission. More capable data-relay satellites that will support real-time global targeting missions can be expected. With a competitive small-satellite sector centered in aerospace universities, China is fast emerging as a leading developer of micro- (50 kg., or 110 lb.), nano- (30 kg. and less) and pico- (5 kg. and less) satellites. China launched three microsatellite missions in 2008, including BanXing-1, which operated in formation with Shenzhou-7. China, like other space powers, expects that expensive large-bus satellites will give way to formations of less expensive, less vulnerable and easier to replenish microsatellites.

PLA inner-space surveillance capabilities include advances in radar and electronic intelligence systems. A recent network of bistatic, long-range, over-the-horizon radar facilities for the first time allow the PLA to monitor naval and air activities more than 1,000 km. (620 mi.) at sea. The PLA has added fixed and mobile tactical radars, including active phased array, digitally enhanced long-wave radar useful for counterstealth operations and long-range passive radar similar to the Ukrainian Kolchuga system, which China reportedly purchased. China has many electronic intelligence and signals intelligence facilities, including sites in Cuba and, reportedly, Myanmar.

PLA surveillance capabilities will soon be enhanced by the acquisition of high-altitude long-endurance (HALE), medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) and vertical-takeoff unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Chengdu Aircraft Corp. is developing a HALE UAV that is a dead-ringer for Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk, while Guizhou Aircraft is developing a novel box-wing HALE drone. Guizhou and Chengdu are also developing MALE UAVs, while vertical UAVs are emerging from China’s helicopter companies and design groups.

Command and communication capabilities benefit from a proliferation of digital and broadband platforms across all PLA services, which aid the development and implementation of joint-forces doctrines and more efficient command structures. National, theater and field-level command posts combine data and video from top command sources to the field, for use along the command chain, while broadband capabilities have helped revolutionize PLA logistics and access to military education. The laptop computer is becoming ubiquitous in the PLA.

In addition, the PLA has made strides in equipping its services with modern computer-based training simulators, from fighter cockpits to submarine command decks, missile and tank crew trainers and personal computer-based infantry-decision trainers. It is reasonable to expect the PLA to follow the example of the U.S. and others in creating networked simulation training for disparate joint forces.

An example of increasing C4ISR prowess occurred last Dec. 8, when according to Chinese accounts, China’s maritime surveillance agency was able to take advantage of precise information concerning the location and patterns of Japan’s coast guard ships, to catch the latter by surprise and move its ships in to assert claims to disputed islands in the East China Sea.

The PLA’s precision surveillance is being combined with new capabilities for precision strike—see our next installment.


Richard D. Fisher, Jr., is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center of Arlington, Va., and author of China’s Military Modernization: Building for Regional and Global Reach (Praeger, 2008).

Photo: USMC